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I am alive. I wish upon myself alternate states of consciousness. I am sympathetic to others freedom and only wish I was granted the same. My memory is grand and filled with japanese vistas. When I am out and the owls catch me like a cat to feed to the natives and the wooden sprites clown me into submission. I will make my way to the kings room. O what sublime fortune that I may tempt stone to writhe though without life. Sweet calcitrant death you furrow a moon that I followed at first. Weekends and mornings of excess. Empty bottles scattered among toxic swollen atmosphere. How can you defend my freedom and make my decisions for me in the same breath? I am weak and common, but I me.

What, don't they teach you kids how to search for things on the net? Oh, wait a sec, you are probably a BESS school.

I turned up a couple of good starting points. It is easy to find a lot of pro-DARE stuff published by the dare folk. Here is a link to some information from PBS's Front lin e. I also came across this article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The latter talks about negative studies from the Dept of Justice, the GAO, and the Department of Ed -- the might be worth tracking down. Hope this helps.

Do you have a source for any of this information? If you look at drug library you can find a wealth of information that does not support your claims. For example your main claim that alcohol consumption is currently lower because of a long lasting effect of prohibition is clearly false. Based on data from the U.S. Alcohol Epidemiologic Data Reference Manual which was published by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Service in 1985, in 1916-19 (pre-prohibition) the average legal alcohol drinker consumed 1.96 gallons of ethanol (this includes all types of alcohol) per year. In 1983 (the last year of statistics) that number was 2.690.

If you check out the reference you'll find the rest of your claims are also disputed.

Actually, Bayer lost the trademark on Aspirin after World War I as a part of war reperations to France, England, Russia and the US; it's still a trademark in other countries, such as Canada, where generic brands of acetylsalicylic acid are sold as ASA. Useless fact: another trademark Bayer lost at the same time was Heroin, which was invented by the same chemist who perfected ASA and marketed by Bayer as a cough suppressant. See this ad.

The following was written with implicit sarcasm tags:

All the social problems with Alcohol and cigarettes went away when they were made legal. It should work just the same with cannabis.

1. Cigarettes (nicotine) have never been illegal in this country (USA). Smoking is prohibited in certain situations, but not nicotine. So no fair conclusions can be drawn here.

2. The sale and consumption of alcohol (ethanol) were prohibited in the USA for a while, and caused many, many problems which I won't attempt to summarize here -- they are too numerous. But read some of these pages:

   • Prohibition: The Drug War, Page One
   • Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure
   • Marijuana and Alcohol Prohibition

Prohibition of any drug is not only a violation of human rights and an Orwellian interference with privacy -- it's also deadly. We need to stop the drug war now.

This is nothing new.

"Most people don't know it, but the government can take people's homes, cars, and money without charging them with a crime--and the burden of recovery is on the owners!" -- Forfeiting Our Property Rights: Is Your Property Safe from Seizure? by Representative Henry J. Hyde

Mostly due to the War on Drugs, forfeiture laws have become unconstitutional. Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have many incentives to keep property:

• - They get to KEEP it if you are found guilty, which allows them to fund themselves through asset forfeiture. The middle/upper middle class are often targetted more often as "suspects" because they have more assents which law enforcement can use/auction off than the poor, and can't afford the million-dollar lawyers which the rich can.
• - The legal system in the U.S. currently holds the opinion that "property can be responsible for the crime." We all know that it is the user of the computer, or the car, or the gun, or the expensive yacht who is at fault for the crime-- these are all just tools. But law enforcement and the justice system do not currently hold that opinion. They believe the property is just as evil as the criminal, and the property must be proven innocent also. (Otherwise they get to keep it and fund themselves, as above.)
• - The current social & justice system opinion is that guilty parties must be stripped of their livelihood (including any property they own which they might enjoy/have purchased with ill-gotten gains) -- whereas the more rational approach, and the more successful approach, is rehabilitation.

Until the laws are changed prohibiting the law enforcement agencies from keeping property they seize, it comes down to this: police target a "suspect" with "nice" assets and seize the property for themselves, sometimes liquidating it even before trial, and even if the suspect is proven innocent.

I suggest reading some of the excellent articles at fear.org, Forfeiture Endangers American Rights Foundation. There are many problems with the current system which must be reformed.

Yes, they can take your stuff, all they need is a warrant -- which can be very easy to get. And then the burden is on YOU -- how do YOU demonstrate that the property is innocent of a crime. But it gets worse than that. Sometimes they LOSE TRACK of your property (because law enforcement seizes a lot of property) and you are unable to get it back. Like I said before, a lot of this has to do with bad laws passed by politicians trying to "get tough on the War on Drugs":

For more than 200 years, the federal government has had the authority to take property through forfeiture. Beginning about 1980, the number and value of seizures started growing dramatically as law enforcement agencies began relying more heavily on forfeiture to fight drug traffickers and other organized crime figures. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 expanded the government's seizure authority and established forfeiture funds within the departments of Justice and the Treasury.\1 Recently, asset forfeiture laws were expanded to cover crimes associated with money laundering and certain financial institutions-related offenses. Collectively, enforcement actions associated with these changes have resulted in the value of Justice's and Treasury's seized property inventories growing from a reported $33 million in 1979 to almost $2 billion in 1994.

THE PROBLEM

As asset forfeiture programs grew in the 1980s, our attention was focused primarily on the management of seized and forfeited property. We found that property was not being properly cared for after it was seized, resulting in lost revenue to the government when the property was sold. Much has been accomplished in this area since the 1980s. However, some significant problems remain with seized property management, and continued oversight is necessary. Also, the departments of Justice and the Treasury continue to operate two similar but separate seized asset management and disposal programs without plans for consolidation, despite legislation requiring them to develop a plan to consolidate postseizure administration of certain properties.\2

In recent years, interest in the asset forfeiture programs has extended beyond asset management to questioning whether forfeiture laws are applied appropriately and effectively and consideration of how forfeiture proceeds should be used.

-- from The Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, Asset Forfeiture Programs.

I suggest everyone in the U.S. join the libertarian party in an effort to return to more constitutional principles.

This is nothing new.

"Most people don't know it, but the government can take people's homes, cars, and money without charging them with a crime--and the burden of recovery is on the owners!" -- Forfeiting Our Property Rights: Is Your Property Safe from Seizure? by Representative Henry J. Hyde

Mostly due to the War on Drugs, forfeiture laws have become unconstitutional. Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. have many incentives to keep property:

• - They get to KEEP it if you are found guilty, which allows them to fund themselves through asset forfeiture. The middle/upper middle class are often targetted more often as "suspects" because they have more assents which law enforcement can use/auction off than the poor, and can't afford the million-dollar lawyers which the rich can.
• - The legal system in the U.S. currently holds the opinion that "property can be responsible for the crime." We all know that it is the user of the computer, or the car, or the gun, or the expensive yacht who is at fault for the crime-- these are all just tools. But law enforcement and the justice system do not currently hold that opinion. They believe the property is just as evil as the criminal, and the property must be proven innocent also. (Otherwise they get to keep it and fund themselves, as above.)
• - The current social & justice system opinion is that guilty parties must be stripped of their livelihood (including any property they own which they might enjoy/have purchased with ill-gotten gains) -- whereas the more rational approach, and the more successful approach, is rehabilitation.

Until the laws are changed prohibiting the law enforcement agencies from keeping property they seize, it comes down to this: police target a "suspect" with "nice" assets and seize the property for themselves, sometimes liquidating it even before trial, and even if the suspect is proven innocent.

I suggest reading some of the excellent articles at fear.org, Forfeiture Endangers American Rights Foundation. There are many problems with the current system which must be reformed.

Yes, they can take your stuff, all they need is a warrant -- which can be very easy to get. And then the burden is on YOU -- how do YOU demonstrate that the property is innocent of a crime. But it gets worse than that. Sometimes they LOSE TRACK of your property (because law enforcement seizes a lot of property) and you are unable to get it back. Like I said before, a lot of this has to do with bad laws passed by politicians trying to "get tough on the War on Drugs":

For more than 200 years, the federal government has had the authority to take property through forfeiture. Beginning about 1980, the number and value of seizures started growing dramatically as law enforcement agencies began relying more heavily on forfeiture to fight drug traffickers and other organized crime figures. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 expanded the government's seizure authority and established forfeiture funds within the departments of Justice and the Treasury.\1 Recently, asset forfeiture laws were expanded to cover crimes associated with money laundering and certain financial institutions-related offenses. Collectively, enforcement actions associated with these changes have resulted in the value of Justice's and Treasury's seized property inventories growing from a reported $33 million in 1979 to almost $2 billion in 1994.

THE PROBLEM

As asset forfeiture programs grew in the 1980s, our attention was focused primarily on the management of seized and forfeited property. We found that property was not being properly cared for after it was seized, resulting in lost revenue to the government when the property was sold. Much has been accomplished in this area since the 1980s. However, some significant problems remain with seized property management, and continued oversight is necessary. Also, the departments of Justice and the Treasury continue to operate two similar but separate seized asset management and disposal programs without plans for consolidation, despite legislation requiring them to develop a plan to consolidate postseizure administration of certain properties.\2

In recent years, interest in the asset forfeiture programs has extended beyond asset management to questioning whether forfeiture laws are applied appropriately and effectively and consideration of how forfeiture proceeds should be used.

-- from The Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, Asset Forfeiture Programs.

I suggest everyone in the U.S. join the libertarian party in an effort to return to more constitutional principles.

daveo agress. marijuana is to make people peaceful, and not wannt to steal or jhurt anyone, just to have some harmless fun. as one may see at http://www.druglibrary.or g/schaffer/library/graphs/28.htm, it is less addictive than coffee. it does not kill brain cells, as does alcohol, and the *bud* which is what is smoked has 1/3 less tar than tobacco. when smoed in a bong, almost all of that tar is filtered out, not to mention marijuana is an expectorant so no damage is done to your lungs, and it is *anti*-tumouros. does any one have that link to the study where thc prevented brain damage in the victims of head trauma directly after the accidwents and saved lives?

http://www.yahooka.com/
http://www.hightimes.com/
http://www.lycaeum.org/
http://marijuana.newscientist.com/
http://www.hemp.net/~ramus
http://www.druglibrary.org/ schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm
http://www.s ptimes.com/News/72699/TampaBay/Stakes_high_in_man_ s_.shtml
http://www.dqc.org/~james/
http://www.november.org/
http://www.pdfa.net/
http://mall.turnpike.net/~jnr/think.htm